Hey meizsko. Sorry to hear of this. Feel bad for you as having dealt with you I know what a thoroughly nice chap you are.
(SKS mudguards for that bargain Hahana...)

The Police love nothing more than an easy cop, & someone who's not used to roughing folk up, going around all emotional & angry, kicking doors in with a baseball bat is playing right in to their hands.

What about your mum sending him another couple of well worded emails/texts/letters...
Needs to be done carefully, but to try to lure him in with the promise of another pot of easy money waiting for him. Something along the lines of having cashed in a policy, loves & believes in him, children not told of money etc. Someone with a bit of a talent off STW could script something up for you.

Although there is obviously a lot of anger, try thinking from another angle and see how lucky you've been...

She still has her home and it doesn't sound like she is going to lose it paying back the £20k loan.
She hasn't lost the entirety of her life savings.
She and other relatives are still with you, which is contrary to what the thread title suggests.

You will all pull through, its just the anger of been done over. Hope you get some justice.

A small update. My mum found a phone number he used to text her by mistake once but than was constantly saying it's not his and someone else had to text her by mistake. He does not answer the phone but the number is not dead. My mum texted him that she will be going to the Police here and in Poland. He texted back that he will phone her. He never mentioned about the money in texts always over the phone. Mum now has a phone with a recorder so will be able to record that phone call.

She started to realise something is wrong in December but was still extra nice to him as she became a hostage of that money. To put things into perspective, she is retired and is on a state pension after 30+ years of work and receives less than £300 a month. So £20k is a tragedy. Again I don't focus on the money as this person took advantage of my mum. how would anyone feel if after 9 years after Your partner died You finally meet someone and trust that person but what ends like this? Devastated? Not trusting anyone? She will probably remain single after that.

As someone else mentioned he might not be a one trick pony and he was probably seeing other women in Poland as well. Using the cash from my mum to fool them into believing he is a hard working but being able to supply for them in the future.

After some time all the lies started not to match up as You can only lie for as long.

There is small hope it will be a go and the guy will pay for what he did.

He will be getting a visit from us this week as well. The address I have is correct as my mum was sending him some medicines there and he was receiving them. I read about some similar stories and there isn't that many involving that big amount of money but what is scary is that the general way the things went is exactly the same. Perfect gentleman, future together, great and safe life, than something apparently happens, either work problems or health problems and that person asks for money. Than is doing a runner. He probably was not expecting to get as much and I think he bit more than he can chew.

Thank You all for support and bombers will go back into the cupboard for another couple of days.

No worries chaps I won't be going on my own, my brother will be with me and probably his mate. They are both pretty big and trained boxing for years. HOWEVER we are NOT going there to go all medieval on his ass It will be a chat only, just to show him that by running back to UK from Poland will not save him from consequences of what he has done. I'm not a violent person and I will follow the official route first.

But seeing the weather will see how the trip there will work out.

There are few things I have to consider, I have an exam I need to pass on Wednesday, I don't have a car so have to rent one or ask for a lift, most mates work during the week etc. I don't want to pull a sickie as I need to pay for rent/bills/food and my savings for a good start with my fiancée will probably have to be used to pay that person off if he does not pay back.

With so many fingers crossed on STW lets hope it turns out ok. I just hate scamers and I hate him. Off to work again.

My sister's friend (very clever, very pretty, quite well off) was taken in by a confidence trickster a couple of years back. The guy took her for about £7Gs IIRC, but he did have lots of previous and did get caught. Not sure if any cash was recovered though

From everything you've said so far, I would say you're doing everything right thus far - a quiet chat combined with your mum's threat of the polis may do the job if he's not a professional scammer (and if he hasn't already spent all the cash!).

Hi Takisawa, mudguards are doing a sterling job on my commuter. Will mail You later.

Now time for an update. Seems the guy was checking his options and he realised he might actually be liable for what he has done, even though there is no written evidence. My mum will be recording his calls as well. He phoned her this morning and was speaking in a very apologetic manner, honey this, my love that. I think my mum is feeling better and more confident now due to the support form us and some good advice on how to play it that was suggested here. He was saying that he was not replying as he was ill at first, than had some problems with his son than he got very upset that she called him a scammer and that is why he was not answering his phone. As my mum now thinks reasonably she did read that right that it's all bullshit. She remembers last time when he did not call her for couple of days and she managed to get a call from his neighbour that he was actually in Poland and not in Wales. When the neighbour passed that my mum was asking for him to his flat mates hey presto a phone call that he was in a hospital as there was an accident on a building site. When she said that You can still call from a hospital he than said he was unconscious. If she would challenge that he would probably come up with some other like being kidnapped by a Yeti or similar.

But going back to today's phone call. Seems he is scared of the prosecution and he said he can't pay it back now but will pay it back as he want's to be with her bla bla bla bla. My mum knows he is a scumbag and would not take him back no matter what but plays along and wants to use his own game of feelings. He was supposed to phone her today again, will need to call her and see if that happened.

So yeah there is progress, but only because he knows that he can be prosecuted and tries to play a nice guy again. We will be going round there on Thursday very early morning but will not approach him, just see what he's up to and where he works. I would love to go there earlier but can't due to my exam.

Another couple of things he said before turned out to be crap.

1. He picked a basement floor flat in a nice place with a great garden so that my grandmother would be able to go and sit in the garden (as it was the plan that my mum would go over there with her). Google street view shows a crap neighbourhood, house is next to a railway line, the garden looks shit and the fence is made out of old wooden pallets. Even my mum laughed when I showed her.

2. He said he's changing cars every now and again, doing them up and selling at a profit. However the neighbour said that he still drives and old white Skoda. Google streetview and hey ho, there is a white old Skoda Felicia parked up the street.

3. He said he is in a building industry, building stores all over the UK and he always suggested that he's some big fish there, not a labourer or similar. That he's going to work early to look at plans etc. He wants to set up his own business, employ two others and contract out to build huge metal constructions for supermarket chains We recently had a store extension at the Tesco I work for, looked like they needed more than 3 people to finish that. Another thing is he said he works around UK where the neighbour said he leaves every day to work so works somewhere locally.

So yeah, it is slightly progressing and hopefully he will be able to pay back be it in instalments. My mum is flying here next week and we will be going there again with her to write an agreement for repayments to have some paperwork.

Thebikechain in Edinburgh will benefit from my mums visit as:
1. I've got loads of Tikitaki and Kasztanki
2. I'll bring You some of her home cooking

I feel a bit better now and my mums is calmer as well. I'm really happy she got her act together and now feels more confident to fight the scammer.

Last two weeks were a bit crazy but there is a result. We managed to get in touch with his neighbours and they were very helpful with letting us know when he's home etc. We went round to a Police station in Edinburgh, but they told us to go to the one in Paisley. So another trip to Paisley was needed. At the Police station woman said it's a civil matter and that there is nothing they can do, advised to see a solicitor. We went to the nearest one in Paisley, guy said that a letter demanding payment would cost us £100+VAT and if my mum would qualify for civil legal aid getting the case to court would cost around £500. Unfortunately she would not qualify for it so we would be looking at couple of grand to get it to court.

On the same day we managed to get in touch with his flatmate, my mum persuaded him to go and ask Mirek (aka The Douche) but he told him he is not coming out and he does not want to have anything to do with us. Shame he was not like this when he took the cash. We took the guy for a coffee and he said that Mirek is working nights now and usually leaves around 7-8pm. Funny thing was that he told my mum he's working away now but he only parked his car two streets away so it looked like he's not at home. Anyway we parked close by and waited until he goes to work. Around 8pm we saw him walking and my mum went running after him (as fast as You can run wearing heels), my brother close by and I drove off to block his car. He managed to drive off but he then wanted to turn around in a side street so I got in front of him and blocked him. Not much of a Hollywood pursuit really as he saw me, managed to reverse away and sped off. I now know that a Passat estate is not the ideal car for tight turns and when I got my mum and brother back in the car he was away. However it probably had the desired effect and he got scared that we will not let him off lightly.

About 30 minutes later he phones my mum sounding scared and asking what was that supposed to be etc. My mum told him that she wants him to sign a document that he will repay the load with a deadline. Then some texts, phone calls and my mum managed to get him to drive to Edinburgh. They met up in a cafe to write everything down. My brother was waiting inside at a different table (as Mirek does not know how he looks like) and I was waiting nearby. Miro started to explain why he was behaving like that but the story was full of BS but my mum played along as she wanted him to sign the document. He signed it, but what was very strange he behaved like nothing has really happened. He even was calling my mum "dear" and gave her a kiss on the cheek on his way out, I wanted to kiss him with my fist when I saw it.

Now it seemed like it's sorted but NO. Turns out he gave my mum the wrong surname and there was no way of checking it as he "forgot" any form of ID. Just one letter difference but he did that on purpose. My mum started to call him again and forced him to come to Edinburgh again. We went to meet him yesterday and new agreement was written, he had his passport and driving license so we now have his real surname. All in all he is still a complete idiot and sometimes I think he might be a nut case, first behaving like that and now all nice etc. Mum is relived that she has something in writing but he still needs to start paying it off. Good thing is now that the document is here it would be easier to get the Police involved.

So this is the final result, I probably missed a thing or two but it seems we had to scare him to get him to sign it and confront my mum. Due to the meeting yesterday, than work, than Uni today I had only 2 hours sleep in the last 24 hours.

I still hate the guy, for all the problems he caused and how he treated my mum.

I would like to thank everyone who had some great advice that was very helpful and to everyone who contacted me via email.

Gixer.John seems it wont be needed. But thank You for the offer.

Spongebob, that does sound very tragic and I just don't understand how sometimes woman can behave like that and douechebags like the guy mentioned is trashing a family.

I'm off to get some sleep. Thank You all again and hopefully this is the end of this story.